Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/107

 'Or his descendants.' You're Mark Ingram. Certainly. It's a lawful agreement on the part of T'ang Min. If his descendants can be found, there is owing to you two hundred thousand taels, or somewhere around one hundred thousand dollars."

The Ingrams gasped.

"We couldn't take it unless they were very very rich again," Jane murmured, "after that."

"Hark to great-grandfather!" laughed Mr. Bolliver. "What would you have done if you'd stood on the dragon-ship that day, eh, Miss Jane?" He tweaked her hair, and went on without waiting for an answer. "No, Miss Lucy and Miss Nelly, it sounds like a wild tale, but I've been through wilder, myself. I understand it all. But all you need to understand now is that some Ingram must go to China and claim what belongs to you."

"Such a sum!" Miss Lucia was murmuring. "Father would never have done it, never! There is some mistake. He would not have hidden the paper."

"The New England father you knew," said Mr. Bolliver patiently, "was, no doubt, very